Shine On
by TheEndReaper
Summary: Bradley was many things, heartless was not one of them.


The Great King Bradley lay on the cold ground, his eyes cast upward to the heavens. He was dying. Dying not as the hero of the people, but the homunculi Wrath. He was a monster, created from the ruthless, power hungry side of society. He knew his time was up, and as his body became numb he wished that he could truly hate the humans for what they've done. But he can't.

**Your sword's grown old and rusty**

**Burnt beneath the rising sun**

**It's locked up like a trophy**

**Forgetting all the things it's done**

'Bradley' was born in a hospital to a mother who didn't want him. The government offered her a small sum to let them have her only son. She didn't hesitate in agreeing.

He wasn't given a name, but a number, just like the other children in the program. But he didn't mind. In fact he never noticed. How do you know if something is wrong if you don't know what's right?

**And though it's been a long time**

**You're right back where you started from**

**I see it in your eyes**

**That now you're giving up the gun**

'Bradley' was a steady middle runner. There were children smarter than him, but there where those who weren't as well. Years go by and training gets harder, but no one ever complained. It was what they were born to do, one of them would be the president or fuhrer one day.

There was one thing he was best at, sword fighting. It was one of the many things they practiced daily. No one could ever beat him, and this gave him a feeling that he couldn't place. But he liked it.

**When I was 17**

**I had wrists like steel**

**And I felt complete**

That feeling got him into trouble as time went on. When ever he was beaten in something a flame grew in his heart. Bigger and bigger the flame grew being fueled by the pent up rage and pain.

Soon candidates where taken one by one into a room where they never returned. And no one thought anything of it, it really was just one less person to compete with.

**And now my body fades**

**Behind a brass charade**

**And I'm obsolete**

Then it was his turn. They brought him into a cold hospital room, they tied him down to the bed. But he had already seen the bodies of the other candidates. They injected him with a fluid he didn't recognize, and the flame that had been growing was finally unleashed.

And he didn't die like the others. No he was taken from the world he knew and thrust into one darker than he could have ever imagined. He became Fuhrer King Bradley but it was nothing like he imagined. He had no freedom he was only the puppet for the man named 'Father'. Those candidates all died for nothing.

**But if the chance remained**

**To see those better days**

**I'd cut the cannons down**

The humans where horrible, his fellow homunculi may have started the war but they all fought without even questioning their orders. How could they all be so trusting? It was sicking.

Father summoned Bradley or 'Wrath' as he liked to call him, and informed him that he was to find a wife so that 'Pride' could be 'adopted'. And for the first time in his life the choice was his.

**My ears are blown to bits**

**From all the rifle hits**

**But I still crave that sound**

Her voice was beautiful, and there was something about her that wasn't like all the other women he was considering. He had been looking for months and Father was getting impatient, but he refused to take the only choice he had ever been given so lightly.

Many of the women he was considering were fake. They said whatever they though would get him to like them, but not her. She was honest and the kindest person he had ever met. Everything she did was just to help others, even when she gained nothing in return.

**I heard you play guitar**

**Down at a seedy bar**

**Where skinheads used to fight**

Father never understood why he chose her, but he really couldn't care enough to question it. He warned Bradley that this was just for appearance, and not to get too attached. But it was too late.

When Bradley told his wife about the accident in his family, and about little Salim, she knew he was lying. But she didn't mind where the kid came from she was just happy to have a child. She knew that she was never going to know the whole story. But she loved him, and thats all that mattered.

**Your Tokugawa smile**

**And your garbage style**

**Used to save the night**

Slowly the homunculi began coming into the public eye, and the state was in chaos. Mrs. Bradley had a feeling that this was going to change everything, but she tried to stay calm for her families sake. Not that they really needed it.

And when she heard that there had been an accident and they had yet to find her son or husband, her world stood still. She didn't know what she would do without them. She had no idea of the war they were waging on humanity.

**You felt the coming wave**

**Told me we'd all be brave**

**You said you wouldn't flinch**

Bradley looked down on the country he had taken care of for so many years. People were dying for no reason just like all those years ago. He was fighting against people who he knew where doing the right thing. But he was made to fallow orders. So thats what he did.

And under the city in which he had lived all his life he met a man. A man who like him had no name. But this man unlike himself had broken away, he wasn't a slave to the people who created him. He was free.

**But in the years that passed**

**Since I saw you last**

**You haven't moved an inch**

The nameless men fought above the place where Bradley was raised. And Bradley knew he had lost before he started it would end here, where it all began. The flame that had been burning in his heart for so long was gone. A woman he fell in love with years ago had extinguished his hate long ago.

Bradley knew for the world to move on. For the humans to learn to think on their own he would have to die. At least the man who would kill him is in return gaining back Ishvalan freedom. He wishes he could have said goodbye to his wife.

**I see you shine in your way**

**Go on, go on, go on**

The girl who's grandfather he killed arrived after the fight, she asked if Bradley had anything to say. To them, to my people, to my wife. he wished he could give them a message for her, but he wouldn't know what to say. He told her no.

"My life was lived on the rails that were laid down for me..." If only he could have broken free... "But thanks to you humans, it was... to some degree, a good life..." If he could have been like the nameless man with him, deciding his own fate... "One worth living..." He could have been free.

And as the Great King Bradley lay on the cold ground. The last of his life draining away. He was going to die, and be remembered only for the bad. But as his vision blurred he cast his eyes up to the heavens and prayed that he would see his wife again one day.

"Im so sorry. I love you."

* * *

I heard the song Giving up the Gun by Vampire Weekend and it reminded me of Bradley's death. I really hated his charictor at first but there was something about his death that made me like him, it almost made me cry to be honest. I hope you injoyed :)


End file.
